The web is bursting with instructors passionate about finding new ways to help their students. We’ve done our best to gather resources, interview interesting people, suggest tips for better teaching and learning, and encourage new ideas and techniques.

In case you missed it, here are some of the most popular posts from the last few months:

• Lesson #1 in Student Engagement – Understand Your Students
  Kicking off our popular 7-part series, this article advises instructors to learn more about their students, then stay focused on teaching in a way that will engage the class. You can also read the entire series, or download the Student Engagement Ebook.
• 10 People in #highered Worth Following
  Educators love exchanging ideas on Twitter. Here are some of our favorites to follow.
• Get Your Students to Speak Up During Class
  How do you get your students to wake up and speak up during class? This post shares a few tips to help you inspire your students to volunteer their thoughts and answers, without making it terribly painful.
• Using Color in the Classroom
  An interesting look at how color psychology can be applied to the classroom.

Primarily, structure is imposed on your data through the coding process. Qualrus’s code editor, along with its powerful Boolean searches and built-in QTools provide quick access to filtered and sorted information.

But there’s another way Qualrus assists with your data analysis that most people ignore: visualization.

Graphical views introduce a welcome change of pace from text-only reports and provide fresh perspective on your developing theory. Analyzing visual representations of data can help advance your thinking on a particular concept or the project as a whole.

Many of us already think visually when trying to define the relationships between various concepts. Like a football coach drawing up a new play, graphical views get the idea in your head down on paper, where you (and your team) can assess, critique and tweak it.

The Views Editor in Qualrus provides a dead simple method of generating visual network views based on your coding scheme. You can open the Views Editor by going to Editors » Views, or by double-clicking “Views” on the Project Tree. Hit “New” to create and save a new graphical view.

As a project develops, the number of codes and links may increase to a level that is difficult to visualize, so Qualrus provides two types of network views: the Star View and the Network View.

The Star View is designed to focus on a single code at a time and display all of the direct links between that "in focus" code and any other codes. The Network View is similar to the Star View, except there is no central code, all codes are equal. Unlike the Star View, in the Network View the codes can be any number of links chained together.

In Star View, just choose a code from the drop down list to display direct links between that code and any other code in the knowledge base.

With the Network View, you can choose any number of codes to add to the View. Once the codes appear in your View, click a code then “Extend” to bring up a list of all the links attached to this code.

Views are automatically saved, but you may want to rename them using the “Rename” button. Also note that you can save your View as an image file by going to File » Save To » File.

That’s really all there is to it!  You can find more detailed instructions on pages 131-135 in the Qualrus Manual.

On your next project, don’t forget to regularly generate some Qualrus Views for a fresh perspective on your evolving theory.

I’m not a natural runner, but I’ve gotten in the habit of jogging 2-3 miles around the track three times a week. It keeps me healthy and — once I got over the initial pain — it has become addictive.

Still, I’m no Ironman (no, not the superhero).

After a mile or two, my body wants to call it quits. I start shuffling my legs instead of taking long, efficient strides. My head sags. My feet begin flailing outward. My breathing becomes irregular and my back hunches up.

No, I’m not having a stroke — I’m just tired.

When my body is exhausted, I’ve found that I need to pay special attention to my form. Too easily, my tired body becomes a clumsy body. Clumsy movements are inefficient, and only tire me out more quickly.

So, down the stretch, I begin focusing on my running posture and breathing.

I keep my head upright and make sure to relax my shoulders and arms. I ensure my legs are compact, making efficient strides. I begin to slow my breathing, inhaling and exhaling in a deep, intentional rhythm.

Concentrating on my form doesn’t guarantee I’ll be in the Boston Marathon next year, but it gives me the best chance to complete my goal for the day and finish the run feeling strong.

I’ve found that a similar strategy works well when solving a design problem.

Say you’re designing a new web site. If you’re a competent designer, the fundamentals come naturally, and you begin the project as you should: articulating the goals of the project, letting form follow function, adhering to basic design principles like unity, balance, contrast and dominance.

But as a project drags on, even the best of us can succumb to exhaustion. You’re tired of staring at the same site over and over. You’re annoyed by your client’s barrage of uniformed suggestions. You just want to be done so you can move on to the next, more exciting project.

When you’re tired, your form slips.

With design, you know you’re getting tired when you resort to trial-and-error, or when you start creating elements without a goal in mind, or when you build something that any 8th grade art student could improve.

It’s time to double your focus on form. Stop, regroup, consider the fundamentals and let your natural talent take over.

Like a runner, designers should be in a state of constant self-assessment: How am I feeling? Am I doing my best work? What needs to change to give myself the greatest chance to succeed? How is my pace? My form?

Your attitude at the beginning of a project is often different than during those final laps. Pay attention to these changes and adjust as necessary.

When the project is finished, you’ll know you ran a good race.

Importing project elements also allows you to reuse work you’ve completed on previous projects. A coding scheme developed for a project involving the analysis of presidential inaugural addresses might turn out to be useful for another project classifying media election coverage.

Qualrus makes it easy to import components from other projects such as codes, scripts and link types, or completely merge two projects into one.

Step 1: Prepare your “donor” project

Your “donor” project contains the components you’re interested in merging with your master project. In order to correctly pull information from this project, you should make sure it is working properly.

The absolute best way to get your donor project ready to is open it up and export it. Go up to File > Export > All project files. This creates a complete working copy of your project and ensures it’s ready for importing.

Step 2: Open Master project and start the Import

With your donor project ready to go, close it and open your Master project (this is the project you ultimately want to contain the combined information).

Select File > Import > …from another project

You will see a window in which you can select the Qualrus project file (*.IQP) to merge with the current project. Select your donor project and click Open.

Step 3: Choose import options

The import window gives you full control over which components you want to import.

The defaults tab allows you to select the types of components you wish to import. The other tabs (Codes, Links, Sources, Segments, Scripts) allow you to designate specific components themselves.

In most cases, you’ll want to import everything, but this is up to you.

This import feature has a built-in validation checking routine to make sure that when important each component all of the other components required for it are also imported. For example, if we wish to import a link between two codes X and Y then we must have code X and code Y in the project.

Keep in mind that if you have an identical source in both your donor and master project that you want to be treated as a single source, the source must have an identical name in each project. Otherwise, Qualrus will treat them as two different sources.

Step 4: Don’t disable verification

When you click OK, Qualrus displays a warning that verification to assure consistency may take some time and gives us the option of turning off verification.

Verification is very important to assure that the knowledge base is consistent, so let’s leave it on by selecting “No” when asked if we want to turn it off.

(Modern computers can handle this without taking too much time.)

Step 5: Double-check and save

When the import is finished, you should see the revised project displayed in the main Qualrus window.

Depending on which components you imported, the project can include sources from the other project, all of its codes, and even the assignments of codes to specific segments.

Double check everything for accuracy and save your new merged project.
 

Unfortunately, these blunders distract me from absorbing the information that matters — qualifications, experience and passion for the position.

Next time you email your resume to a prospective employer, make sure to avoid these mistakes:

Don’t paste your resume into the email message

All email clients render text differently, so your resume probably doesn’t look as intended on the receiving end. Plus, this makes is difficult for the employer to organize, share or print your resume.

Don’t send me a doc or docx file – use PDF

While doc format is somewhat standard in the business world, don’t use it for resumes. Sending an editable Word document means that you can’t be certain the layout and style of your resume will look the same on the employer’s end. For instance, I’ve had people use a font in their resume I don’t have installed on my machine.

The result? Gibberish.

You don’t want gibberish in your resume. Presentation is everything with a resume, so ensure the fidelity of the file by saving it as a PDF. This embeds the fonts and layout so you can control exactly what your future boss will see.

Pay attention to the file name of your resume and cover letter

Fifty-percent of the resume files I receive are titled something like “Resume_New4.doc”. This is poor form. I don’t care that this is your “new” resume and that you’ve gone through three revisions before this one. When I download these resumes to my computer, I don’t know whose is whose.

Make sure I can find your resume quickly by including your full name and the word resume. Something like “Andrew Bird – Resume.PDF”.

Put some thought into your resume design

Some of the resumes I receive are so poorly formatted that I can’t even read them. These applicants are immediately disqualified.

Other resumes are readable, but just plain ugly. You have one chance to impress me — don’t use center-aligned Comic Sans font.

Generally I tell people to avoid resume templates (you can download these in Word format) since they lack originality. But if you’re not confident in your design prowess, it’s better to use a template than build an unattractive resume.

Don’t send your resume from an awkward email address

I’m talking to you, hottgurl2002@hotmail.com. This isn’t high school anymore. You should be using a professional sounding email address for professional correspondence.

(At Idea Works you get bonus points if you use Gmail)

Don’t be too casual

I like it when people allow their personality to shine, but there’s a limit. Show off your personality while retaining a respectful tone throughout all your communication.

Avoid slang words or abbreviations like ASAP, LOL and Thanx.

Go one step beyond the standard application process

Just because the job ad doesn’t mention a cover letter doesn’t mean you can’t send one. Provide more than the job ad requests and you’ll stand out from the crowd.

For example, have an old boss email a recommendation a few days after you apply. Or, give a quick call to the office just to see if they have any questions about your resume.

The extra effort shows me that you’re genuinely interested in the position and willing to work hard to get it.

Don’t tell me you’re just looking for anything, or looking to pad your resume

I’ve actually had people say they are looking for a job that looks good on their resume. This doesn’t impress me. Neither does admitting that you’re just looking for any ol’ job.

Employers are looking for applicants who are specifically qualified and interested in a particular position. In your email message or cover letter, tell me exactly why the job description appeals to you.

Ditch the boring objective statement

I know most places recommend including a Object or Purpose Statement on your resume, but I don’t see the point when most people write a generic purpose like: “To find a position that utilizes my strengths…”

I find myself skipping over these content-less Objective statements. If you have something unique to say, go ahead and put it in there. Otherwise leave it out.

Conclusion: Pay attention to details

Employers often sort through hundreds of applicants to find a handful worth interviewing. The content of your resume and cover letter are the meat-and-potatoes of your application, but the details matter, too.

Before sending anything off, stop and think about the impression your application will make on the employer:

• Is your resume nicely formatted, named and easily opened?
• Is your email message professional and individualized for the position?
• Have you given the employer a reason to pay special attention to your application?

It doesn’t take much time to think through the details of your application, and guarantee that your prospective employer sees your value, not your mistakes.

I’ve never seen someone so excited by data. I was excited too, since Rosling does more than just slap some graphs on a slide. He tells a story with the data.

Rosling explains:

Statistics has to go together with other information and with experience. That’s when it’s useful…People are not stupid. They will understand statistics and they will use it, if it’s made available in relevant and interesting ways.

As professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, Rosling explores data drawn mostly from the United Nations, intent on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world. His arguments and observations are convincing, though his main appeal lies in the way he presents data.

Convinced that global data should be accessible and understandable, Rosling founded Gapminder with his son and daughter-in-law in 2005. Gapminder was purchased by Google in 2007.

Gapminder assembles and standardizes an impressive collection of international data, then presents them as animated, interactive graphs. By emphasizing statistical time series, Gapminder gives life to numbers on economy, energy, health, employment and more.

Who would have thought I could waste a whole morning generating charts on infant mortality, oil consumption, and family size? The interface is incredibly slick, the data are thought-provoking, and the animations are illuminating.

In short — you have to try it.

In our data-obsessed culture, we need more pioneers like Rosling to help us find comprehensive and engaging methods to present information. We’ve got numbers on everything, but information is easily misconstrued unless placed in the proper context, in relation to other relevant information.

Perhaps more importantly — let’s be honest here — numbers are boring to most people. A typical Excel table or graph isn’t capable of empowering and mobilizing people for broad social change.

Rosling shows us how global data — presented in the right way — naturally lead to an engaging look at the big picture. Presenting information should tell a story.

Rosling’s story is about how the world is getting more and more similar. He predicts countries like China and India will replace western nations (like the United States and the United Kingdom) as the leading world economy by 2048.

What’s your story?

It’s a minor feature, but now I wonder how I lived without it.

Yesterday, I came across a few more useful Firefox features that I’ve already incorporated into my day-to-day repertoire. These tips center on getting more out of the aptly named Awesome Bar – a much-hyped feature of Firefox 3+.

1. Location bar search

All the documentation I’ve found claims that simply typing a keyword into the Awesome Bar (a.k.a Location bar) will, by default, search for that term via Google. This has never worked for me.

When I type Andrew Bird into the Location bar, I get re-directed to a OpenDNS page with a few awkward links. Certainly not the robust search I was hoping for.

Mozilla support says they use Google’s Browse by Name service for Awesome Bar searches, but the Google toolbar support page says “This feature is only available for Toolbar for Internet Explorer.”

Weird. I’m not really sure what this means…all I know is that it doesn’t work for me.

For the time being, I’ve simply altered Firefox’s keyword service to use Bing instead. Here’s how:

• Type about:config in the Firefox Location bar
• Click through the “This might void your warranty!” warning page
• Search for keyword.URL
• Click the URL entered under Value (probably says something like http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q)
• Replace this with the URL for the search engine of your choice, for example:
• Yahoo – http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
• Bing – http://www.bing.com/search?q=

Now, just type a search term directly into the Awesome Bar and you should get search results from the selected search engine.

(You can also follow Mozilla’s directions for changing your keyword service)

2. Smart keywords

I use the built-in search (the search toolbar in the upper right corner of Firefox) hundreds of times a day. It’s an incredibly convenient to quickly search using Google, Thesaurus.com, or Wikipedia all in one place.

Still, I’m lazy and sometimes I get annoyed by having to switch search engines using the drop down list. Enter Smart Keywords.

Using Smart Keywords, you can assign a keyword to each search engine. For example, you can assign Wikipedia to the keyword wiki. Then simply type the keyword followed by your search term directly into the Location bar.

Simply entering something like wiki korngold will instantly bring up the Wikipedia entry on Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

To add Smart Keywords:

• Go to the search engine drop down list and select Manage Search Engines…
• Click on an existing search engine and hit Edit Keyword…
• Type in the keyword you want to use for that search engine and hit OK

That’s it! Don’t forget to add keywords for my personal favorites: Thesaurus.com and IMDB.

3. Bookmark keywords

The Awesome Bar relies heavily on your bookmarks and history to provide relevant site suggestions. For even faster access to your bookmarks, set up bookmark keywords.

Here’s how to associate the keyword alist with one of your bookmarked sites, A List Apart.

• Open your Library by going to Bookmarks > Organize bookmarks…
• Navigate to the proper bookmark and select it
• In the bottom pane (where it says Name, Location, Tags) click the More down arrow
• Type in alist as the value for Keyword

Voilà! Now just type alist into your Location bar and you’ll be taken directly to the fantastic design articles on A List Apart.

Of course, you can also improve Bookmark searches by adding tags to each bookmark (but I’m generally too lazy for that).

Have fun with your new-found productivity and Happy Thanksgiving!

You may have heard the world is made up of atoms and molecules, but it’s really made up of stories. When you sit with an individual that’s been here, you can give quantitative data a qualitative overlay.

- William Turner

But that’s only half the story.

It’s vital to remember that a user’s experience on your site is more than the sum of their clicks. Ideally, we’d all have the chance to sit in the same room as our users, watching their every move then interviewing them about their experience. But besides being somewhat creepy, such one-on-one assessment is rarely practical.

Fortunately, there are a host of web-based tools available designed to collect qualitative data from your users quickly at a reasonable price.

Here are some of my favorites:

Userfly

Price: $0/mo – $200/mo

After getting an account and adding one line of code to your site, Userfly records videos of user visits, letting you see mouse movements, click and form interaction. It’s a straight-forward way to see actual users interacting with your site.

There’s a great demo available to test it out, and the free account gives you 10 captures each month.

ClickTale

Price: $0/mo – $790/mo

ClickTale also records user visits and provides some great aggregate reports to help further understand user behavior. For instance, their form analytics report details where visitors might be giving up on your form. And the heatmaps metric shows which content visitors are actually viewing. What parts of the page do visitors skip? How far down do they scroll?

You also get enhanced information about link clicking behavior. Besides collecting click rates, ClickTale tells you how long users hovered over links and hover-to-click ratios.

FiveSecondTest

Price: Free

FiveSecondTest allows you you to submit your designs for testing. Other users view your design for five seconds, then jot down five things they remember.

While it’s not as comprehensive as some other services, FiveSecondTest provides a really quick overview of how others react to your web page. If you’re designing a landing page, it’s a great way to ensure users are seeing what you want them to see. The basic functionality is free, so it’s worth throwing your design up there and seeing what people think.

It’s just as easy to do a test yourself, so don’t forget to help another designer out and comment on their page.

Loop11

Price: $350 flat fee for each project (up to 1000 participants)

Loop11 combines user video recording with customized usability surveys. Users interact with your site, completing a series of predefined tasks while answering questions about their experience as they go. All interactions are captured, processed and made available in real-time reports.

The process is simple: create user tests for your website (tasks and questions), invite participants (through an invite link), and analyze your results. Loop11 is a good option for a fairly well-developed project, when you have some specific questions in mind.

UserTesting.com

Price: $29 flat fee for each video

UserTesting.com allows you to watch real people using your website, while they narrate their experience. After creating a user test, UserTesting.com finds testers that meet your criteria. Testers then use your website, recording their screen and speaking their thoughts as they browse. Then you get the video, along with a written summary.

Unlike Loop11, you don’t have to find your own testers, but you pay for each user video ($29 flat fee). If you think you’ll have trouble finding testers, or only need a handful of users (under 10), then UserTesting.com might be a good choice for you.