Using PowerPoint as a way revisiting readings at the end of the day.

“Before going to sleep I usually make a black on white PowerPoint presentation of the readings I have finished. I write the most important ideas – no more than five sentences per slide; 20 slides max! While lying in bed and listening to my music trying to fall asleep, I read the slides which takes about 10 minutes – it is a lot easier to memorise what I have read during the day using this small trick.”  Taha – ITO course.

memory ideas

Open courses to help me catch up with work.

“I watch open course videos to improve my knowledge or to help me to catch up with my classmates.  I do not find some of the uni notes good enough so the online videos are the best help and they often come from Oxford, Cambridge and MIT etc.” Linda

oxford podcasts

The links to Oxford, Cambridge and MIT show a range of options from podcasts to a YouTube channel and a web page from MIT with links to more sites.  There are also many websites that have lists of courses, videos or podcasts and they often use the acronym ‘MOOCs meaning Massive Open Online Courses for example

MOOCs: Top 10 Sites for Free Education With Elite Universities

300 Free MOOCs from Great Universities (Many Offering Certificates)

 

Sticky Notes on Windows 7 as a useful freely available task reminder

Sticky Notes

Sticky notes positioned around the Microsoft Windows instructions – they can be used as an overlay with any documents and a sticky note can be added at anytime. The application can be pinned to the taskbar so you can toggle the notes off and on or simply close the Window and they will be automatically saved.

I am using “Sticky Notes”, the built in application in Windows 7. I began using this application because I tend to forget tasks and things I have to do over the day or week. This application is really helping me to gather information at the time it is required and also helps me to improve my memory when it comes to those everyday tasks.

What is quite helpful with this app is the fact that it is always facing you, while it stays “stacked” on the screen, you always have a face-to-face communication with your tasks which really helps you not to forget them.

It really requires a bit of a notification system so that you can organize your tasks at different time intervals, but it seems to be working fine for me at the moment.

Stelios – MSc Web Technology