Free Web Survey Tool For Students

Friends, Educators, Students, Lend Me Your Ears. I recently discovered that SurveyGizmo, one of the leaders in online survey tools, offers free accounts to currently enrolled students. If you are like me, creating surveys is a powerful way to gather research and get your project the boost it needs.

What you get:

• 500 Responses per month
• Save and Continue functionality
• Export to SPSS
• Cross Tab Reports
• Multi-lingual survey capabilities
• Page and Question Randomization
• A/B Split Testing
• Email Support (the Student plan does not include phone support)
• Advanced Question Types like Star Ranking questions and Custom Tables
• Advanced Survey and Page Logic

http://www.surveygizmo.com/free-student-account/

Digitwirl – Life Moves Fast

I found a website with a similar mission as Leading Hands that digests the latest technology and breaks it down into sizable chunks you can understand. Digitwirl is a blog that focuses on technology from mom”s point-of-view. Each week a light-hearted and humorous 3-4 minute video is posted that takes poke at the latest technology. The video features strong tips and information that you can act on immediately. Below is the current episode of Digitwirl. What do you think of it?

Digitwirl says, “Do the happy dance you do when tech actually works for you.”
http://digitwirl.com/

Plagiarism Tools

An esteemed college professor asked me the other day if I knew of any online plagiarism tools. In the past, I have used http://turnitin.com and http://www.articlechecker.com/, but I was determined to find a good list of tools for him. Below is a quick review of the plagiarism tools I found on Yahoo Answers.

#1 http://www.plagiarismdetect.com/
There is no download and it is completely free but you will have to sign it to use it. I tried it out and it works perfectly.

#2 http://academicplagiarism.com is another free plagiarism checker. I found this on Youtube. It scans for plagiarism by comparing documents to to the web and their own database. Also, it lets you upload documents and paste text. I'””ve been using it for a few months. I like it.

#3 http://aafter.com is a free plagiarism checker. Now, you can check any written article to see whether it has similarity with any other pages on the internet. To use this feature, you have to type *** (3 stars) and then paste The Document in the AAfter’s search box. The search result shows the links to WebPages, if any, that contains similar text as that of the document.

Do you have any plagiarism tools to add?

Novel Rank

Trying to figure out what book to buy? Whether you an author and you want to track your sales or you are a consumer looking for a good book, base your decision on book popularity. Novel Rank provides free Amazon Sales Rank tracking of book sales on Amazon, including Kindle Edition e-books and printed editions.

If you are an author, you can setup an account on Novel Rank to track your book sales. If you are a consumer you can see, the top ten lists of the best selling books on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

http://www.novelrank.com/

Urban Dictionary Keeps You Hip

I don’t know about you, but I live by the mantra, “If you stop learning, you stop leading.” As the day goes by I am constantly jotting down new terminology that strikes a chord. The other day I heard a word walking down the street that made me stop in my tracks. The music school is nearby and I heard one student say to another, “Nice Air Bowing“. I immediately did a Google search and landed on the Urban Dictionary.

Since 1999, this online dictionary created by the masses continues to live and breathe. If you are in need of some new slang or you’re curious what someone just said, check this site out. The tagline of the website is, “Urban Dictionary is the slang dictionary you wrote.” Thus, if you have a word you’ve coined in your circle, why not contribute to the cause? Join the word play and discover a new world.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Plain English Video Series Rocks

Jason Therrien directed me to this website a few months back and since then, I can’t stop watching this channel. How many times have you been in a conversation and you asked someone to explain that in plain English? Denzel Washington in one of his murder investigation movies said to a suspect, “Talk to me as if I were a 5 year old.” In other words, explain to me a few easy sentences what you mean. Plain English by Common Craft takes any topic you can think of and breaks it down into 2 minute YouTube video a 5 year could understand.

Check out the Plain English YouTube Video Channel
http://www.commoncraft.com/show

Monitor Websites with “Page 2 RSS”

Do you use RSS (really simple syndication) feeds ? If you aren’t already using RSS, you should check it out because it saves time. RSS is essentially a quick way to get updates from websites without visiting them. Every time the site is updated you know. However the key is you need to sign-up for a website’s RSS feed and download a free RSS reader. To sign-up for RSS, look for the orange icon that looks live a sound wave. I recently got back on the RSS wagon and downloaded the Google Reader.

What do you do if the website doesn’t have an RSS feed? Now with Page 2 RSS, it monitors web sites that do not publish RSS feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favorite RSS aggregator.

Are you an RSS junkie? Can anyone offer any words of advice to any first time RSS people?
http://page2rss.com/

Discover & Publish Docs with Scribd!

Do you need to post a bunch of PDFs to your website? However once you upload them to you website, your users are annoyed that they pop-up in another browser? Easily publish and share your documents with the world with Scribd.

Scribd uses iPaper which turns your PDF into a virtual flip book. Now you don’t have to wait for the document to load into another window because it loads in the same window. Flip through the pages like you would with your favorite book. Right now you can surf their website and explore many topics.

Scridb is striving for collective intelligence; they want to use their technology to make collections of your documents, ebooks, and presentations easily searchable. There are many topics currently available for you to browse.

Scribd Topics include:
* Cheat Sheets
* Cooking and Recipes
* Databases
* eBooks
* Economics
* Funny Stuff
* Magazines
* Maps
* Origami
* Photography
* Physics
* Programming
* Religion
* Sheet Music
* Sports
* Textbooks
* Travel and Tourism

Do you like this technology? What don’t you like about it?

Discover and Publish Docs with Scribd!
http://www.scribd.com/

Online College Courses for Half Price

Thinking of going to college, but you can’t afford it? In the olden days you would go to your local community college, take a few courses and then later transfer to a state school. Buruck Smith wanted to offer college students an affordable, easy online alternative to taking required classes. Now you can take a handful of classes online at Straighterline for as little as $399 a class.

What is it?
StraighterLine provides high quality, better supported, and lower cost required college courses – online, on your schedule. You can knock out your required courses and earn real college credits that give you a head start on your degree.

What are the drawbacks?

• Learning online is a different animal
• Class content could vary
• Need online access

Why not take your introductory classes online for a fraction of the cost?
http://straighterline.com/

Meet Sid the Science Kid

Brought to you by Jim Henson’s company, PBS Kids created a great online site revolving around science called “Sid the Science Kid”. When your kids meet Sid, they will discover an animated treat that will keep them busy for hours.

The site offers a variety of skill building activities that will strengthen their memories, but also teach them important real life science experiments. For example, you can visit the lab to partake in a myriad of activities. You can click on the “Disgusto-meter” to watch a sandwich decay in a lunchbox. You can zoom in and watch how it is decaying underneath a magnifying glass. You can also move around the lab and discover interactive journal drawings of recent experiments.

Discover your children’s inner scientist with Sid!
http://pbskids.org/sid/