Using Prezi to Reinvent Your Lectures

If you're ever looking for ways to make your lectures more engaging, consider using Prezi--an online, non-linear program that allows you to map your presentations.  Teachers and students can sign up for a free account at www.prezi.com.

How To Cite a Tweet

The MLA recently announced a citation format for tweets. Amusingly, the citation is longer than the work cited. The format looks like this:

If that seems like too much work, there is a website that will generate the citation for you. The website Tweet2Cite allows you to paste the URL of a tweet and will prepare both MLA and APA formatted citations. 

myMitty Quiz Workshop

The focus of this September 2013 workshop was how to format multiple choice questions to import into myMitty quizzes. For a basic introduction to myMitty quizzes, see this Knowledge Base post.

Here’s how to format an existing multiple choice quiz so it's ready for import into myMitty:

1. Open the quiz on your computer.
2. Copy and paste the text into a new file in TextEdit.
3. Select all the text, select “Format” -- “Make Plain Text”
4. Format the quiz as follows:


What is 2 + 2?
A. 4

B. 2

C. 0
D. None of these
ANSWER: A

Who is the President of the US?
A. Bush

B. Clinton

C. Obama
D. McCain
ANSWER: C

Which is the best Catholic school in San Jose?
A. Bellarmine

B. Mitty

C. Sacred Heart Prep
D. Homestead
ANSWER: B

BE SURE TO NOTE:

• The blank spaces in the sample above really do make a difference.
• Auto-numbering (lettering) OFF.

• ANSWER (and the letter answers) must be capitalized.

• Unusual characters, including curved apostrophe and quotations (straight marks are OK, the curved ones are not), and material from equation editor
 will fail.

Next, it's time to input this document into myMitty:

1. Login to myMitty
2. Go to Questions in the Administration block.
3. As needed, select the Category tab and create a category for this quiz
4. Click the Import tab
5. Aiken Format
6. Uncheck get category from file
7. Upload your .txt file
8. Click OK: Mac OS (default) is fine
9. Click “upload this file”, Click Continue

Congrats! You’re now able to use those questions in your quizzes.

If you have any questions about this process, please don't hesitate to ask Graham or any other member of Spectrum!

Quick Tips for the iPad

TAKE AN IPAD SCREENSHOT!

You can take a screenshot on your iPad by pressing the HOME Button first and then the Sleep/Wake button. The screen will flash white and you'll hear a click, indicating that a photo has been taken. Your screen shots are saved automatically in your Photos gallery. 

Here, you can view or email them as you see fit!

PREVIEW MORE OF YOUR EMAILS!

The iPad's Mail app defaults to previewing two lines of each email before you tap on it. Sometimes however it would be handier to be able to see more of an email before loading the whole thing in, especially if you are on a slow connection. To do this open the Settings app, then tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars and change the Preview options to add more lines.

DEFINE A WORD

When you hold down on a word to copy it, choose Define. Tap this and, you can see suggestions for alternative words that have similar spellings. It's a good way of quickly correcting typos.