Something very important both as a student and as a teacher is organisation. When it comes to ICTs and the digital world -your computer, not any Digimon video game or series- it's even more important. It's easy to see how tidiness matters when your place is a mess and you can't find that sheet of paper or book you've misplaced, but what about that file that doesn't even take up visual physical space? Your desktop might be chaotic and full of icons, but it stops staring at you the moment you close your computer. If you add several pen drives, external hard drives and a ton of folders, subfolders and subsubfolers to this situation... Well, you can see where this is going, right?
Let's start with the basics
Keep your files organised! Sure, you can use the search bar to find files, but you will feel more confident and productive if you can see at a glance whether you're missing one or not. It's not just about everything looking nice. I've realised that I am more organised and productive if I also feel more organised. For example, something I always do with files related to classes is adding the date as part of the name. The result would be AbbreviatedClassName_YearMonthDay. The year-month-day order is important. Otherwise, files will not be sorted chronologically. Yes, sorting files by date without said date being in the file name is indeed possible, but any other files created for that class -e.g. homework or assignments- will end up in between all the class files.
This idea can also be applied to assignments and papers. Instead of giving them names that stop making sense at some point, such as final, truly final, absolutely final or final this time for real, just add _revYMD at the end of the name. Make a new copy every time you revise it and that's it. See? It's easy. Companies don't have magical superpowers. They just have properly descriptive file names. By the way, the same can be applied to your CV file(s).
Next, make copies. Seriously, you don't want to lose information because your hard drive died halfway through a big project. Don't wait till tomorrow. If you don't want to stop reading right now, I will remind you to back up your files at the end.
Finally, SAVE YOUR WORK ALL THE TIME! Yelling is necessary. I know far too many people who had to start over because Word crashed and they hadn't even saved once in over five pages of work. I always Ctrl+G (Ctrl+S if your Word is in English instead of Spanish) every couple of sentences. I don't even have to look anywhere or lift my hands from the keyboard to click on an icon. Ctrl+G is a lifesaver. Actually, keyboard shortcuts in general are lifesavers, but if you don't want to remember lots of shortcuts, just remember Ctrl+G.
Symbaloo, Feedly and bookmarks
Another thing that can easily become a mess are bookmarks and open tabs. First of all, you can back up your bookmarks. It's never a bad idea. Then, there are two names that you should at least consider.
The first one is Symbaloo. It was thanks to the ICT class that I became aware that this tool existed. It allows you to create collections of links. You can use these collections to store sites and have easy access to them. Since you can have several collections, you can save links in a very tidy way. I still don't know if I'm going to use Symbaloo for my personal life after this class is over, since I find the bookmarks toolbar a lot more convenient for daily use. However, I can see the usefulness in adding links to a collection and then giving students the link of that collection. Since the collection can be edited, it wouldn't even have to be the absolutely final version. A teacher wouldn't need to generate a new link every time they update the collection. Also, having important tools reachable from anywhere could be useful if you have to work at a different computer at some point.
The other name you should consider is Feedly. Feedly makes your life so much easier if you read blogs or blog-like sites. You just need to create an account and add those sites. If the site has posted a new article, Feedly will tell you. There's even an app, so you can read your favourite blogs while sitting in the underground.
If you read blogs before 2013, you might remember Google Reader. Feedly does essentially the same thing. It's a news aggregator. I've been using Feedly to read blogs and various news sites since 2009 or 2010. I love it! It's easy to use and works really well. You can create folders, so you can keep all your sites organised, and it has a minimalist design that doesn't get in the way of reading. It also saves me a lot of time and keeps my inbox clear of blog newsletters. I can only recommend it. If you give it a try and don't like Feedly, but like the idea of this tool, there are many other news aggregators.
Also, keep in mind that putting all your eggs in one basket is always a terrible idea when it comes to technology. For example, Google Reader disappeared. I was using it as a backup for Feedly and suddenly needed to find a new backup option. I'm not saying that you should use a ton of different tools in case one suddenly vanishes, but using more than one is not a bad idea. Or, you know, you can add sites to bookmarks as well as Feedly and Symbaloo and create a backup of those bookmarks to have a copy of that information in case you ever need to use it.
Now that you've reached the end, GO BACK UP YOUR FILES RIGHT NOW if you haven't done so already!
Did you know these tools? Are you saving and backing up your work regularly? Feel free to let me know in the comments.
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