Tech Lore

If you are trying to learn something new, you probably have a pretty good idea of how you learn best. Most of us have studying tactics that have passed the test of time and that we use over and over to promote memorization and comprehension of concepts. Perhaps you took a quiz about what kind of "learner" you are when you were in school and have stuck to the visual/audio/tactile learner trope. Or maybe you have discovered a way to combine learning styles to optimize retention and comprehension. However you learn best, having tools to improve your study habits can make the process far more efficient. When I am learning a new subject, I like to immerse myself in as many ways possible to cover all of my bases. I listen to Podcasts, talk to experts, read about the subject, rewrite ideas in my own words, use mobile apps if available, and of course, make flashcards! Flashcards are a tried and true method of memorizing concepts which is often an important foundational piece of u...

The graduate students are responsible for creating an ebook of all of the technologies we wrote about in our individual papers for the 4407/5507 course. The purpose of the ebook was to have a compiled book of all of our technology tools in one place online that anyone could access. We were given the options to create a website or a wiki, but in the process of researching these we discovered GitBook , which was the perfect tool to create our ebook. I spent some time going through GitBook's tutorials and help pages . GitBook is a command line tool for building books using Git and Markdown. Git is a version control system that tracks changes and coordinates those changes among multiple people. It's usually used for source code management but can be really useful in tracking changes in any set of files. It's non-linear, so the version control is faster and has greater data integrity than something like Google Drive applications, which are designed with version control in m...

We are often told: the higher the reward, the greater the motivation. But what if our motivation comes from something else? What if we aren't motivated by material incentive at all? This video illustrates the "surprising" factors of motivation. But after watching the video, you may find that the information isn't that surprising after all. People are more motivated by purpose, studies found. When given total autonomy, employees were more creative and displayed more motivation. The idea that we are driven to perform better when given more freedom and autonomy is not new. But it certainly does seem to be a difficult concept for many leaders and managers to adhere to. When we are driven to succeed by feelings of purpose and mastery of skills, we are more highly invested in our tasks and more motivated to perform.

I have used Canva for things like designing business cards or creating invitations, but I had not yet used it for infographic creation. Because I am familiar with Canva, I decided to start this week's post by attempting to design an infographic with them first. Canva is great for all of your design needs but I found myself struggling to bring a useful infographic to life. I wasn't yet familiar with the concept of infographics so I wasn't sure where to start. I decided to explore the concept a little further and read Dr. Robin's suggested blog posts... which led me to Piktochart. This software pretty exclusively deals in infographics, whereas Canva is more of a conglomeration of any graphic design project you can imagine. So while I'll always love Canva for social media posts and creating unique postcards, Piktochart is my new go to for infographic designs. Piktochart offers a variety of beautiful free templates. The amazing thing about Piktochart is that they te...

Today's technology knows no bounds and organizations are eager to stay competitive. The best way to do that is to implement as many avenues as possible to reach people. Podcasts are gaining traction as a popular marketing tool because they are convenient, engaging, and appeal to a mass audience. A podcast is a set of audio files that are available to download from the internet. Users can subscribe and receive notifications when new episodes are available. 5 Reasons Podcasts are Awesome 1. Use it instead of video Sometimes organizations don't have the skills or expensive equipment to make a video that will benefit their business. Podcasts are a great alternative because you can effectively get your message out there without all the fuss of a video. 2. Easy to create Podcasts can be recorded easily and by anyone. They are time-effective to make and easy to distribute. The equipment needed to record a podcast is inexpensive and editing software is free . All you need t...

Great images can really take your blog to another level. Content with beautiful, relevant images gets 94% more views than content without images. The perfect image makes a blog post more accessible and more shareable.  Whether you're adding text to an image or just make it pop, these tools can help you take your blog posts to the next level. 1. Canva Canva is an online design tool that's perfect for bloggers. It offers a free version that you can easily use to create amazing Photoshop quality graphics and has thousands of free images, backgrounds, and templates to choose from. There are also opportunities to purchase upgrades for even more options. Canva uses drag-and-drop functionality, making it easy to resize and customize images. Use a preexisting template to design the perfect image to share on social media, or customize your dimensions.  2. Piktochart Piktochart is perfect for creating infographics, presentations, and reports. This is a powerful way t...