Personal Productivity Tools

I really enjoyed learning about these three awesome personal productivity tools: TinyURL, DropBox, and Teamviewer.  I have already started using them.

First, I have been curious about this TinyURL thing for a while.  I’ve mainly seen these URLs popping up in tweets and I had thought this was a Twitter-specific URL address.  Now I understand – since tweets can only be 140 characters, and many links are longer than that, Tweeter’s use this service to shorten them to a tweet-friendly URL.  I can see this being a time saver in the classroom if you are creating handouts for kids to take home with URLs.  Shortening some longer URLs will make it much less likely to make mistakes when copying.

I have downloaded DropBox and plan on adding the iPhone app as well as, for work especially, I would like to be able to access docs on my phone to show clients in the field.  This awesome service allows one to have a DropBox folder on each computer (or smart phone) they may have.  These folders will sync with one another so you always have the latest edit of your document wherever you may be computing.  Plus, you can log into the DropBox website and access docs online as well, if you are on a friend’s or library computer.  This will be a great service for the classroom because a teacher as they can sync documents with the school computer and home rather than copy files to an easy to lose thumb drive.

Lastly, there is Teamviewer.  This app allows a user to log into a peer’s computer to help assist with a computing problem, make a presentation to several viewers remotely, or collaborate remotely in real-time.  I found out about this app in our EDUC 520 Adobe Connect session in week one, and that weekend I used it to help my aunt with some tech issues.  It worked great, my only complaints were that it was a little hard to read her screen on my small MacBook screen, and for some reason my mouse appeared as this awkward striped block which made it hard to accurately direct my mouse on her computer.  Other than that, it worked great.  I’ve also used GoToMyPC and LogMeIn which worked well too.  Teamviewer would be valuable to a teacher to help with students schoolwork if they cannot come to school for some reason.  Or, to hold an after hours homework help session with students being able to log in and see the teacher’s screen as he or she worked through some tough problems or other assignments.

I can definitely see using all three of these powerful little apps in my classroom.