Blogging Tools

Blogger is a free blogging platform that allows users to create their own blogs and/or websites with custom domain names. Because it is owned by Google, it is included in your Google account—if you have Gmail, you would use the same login for your Blogger account. By default blogs are public, but you can choose to limit your audience in the settings.

Blogs can have multiple posters, up to 100 "team member" invitations per blog. Each Google user can have up to 100 blogs per account, and each blog can have an unlimited amount of posts. This makes it ideal for instructors, as you can have a blog for every class you teach, and you can have your students each publish blog posts as part of a class assignment.

Blogger has many customizable templates and allows you to create your own and/or customize the HTML. You can preview posts before they are published to the blog, and drafts auto-save. Blog posts can have tags and geotags (your location when you posted it) and have social media sharing buttons when published. You can follow other blogs of interest, and new posts by blogs you subscribe to will show up on your dashboard. Blogger can also integrate with AdSense, if you wish to try making a little money by allowing Google to put ads on your blog. There are iOS and Android Blogger apps for mobile blogging.

www.blogger.com

Blogger Help Center

Video tutorial: Getting started with Blogger

WordPress is a free blogging platform and website creator. Per their website, all the blogs and websites made with WordPress make up 25% of the Internet. In order to create a blog or webpage, a free account must be created. Besides the free basic account, WordPress has Premium ($99/year) and Business ($299/year) accounts. These include custom domain names, no ads, video hosting, more file space, additional customization options, and more personalized support. Like Blogger, you have the option of getting a custom domain name for your website for an annual fee.

Inviting others to be a Contributor, Editor or Author will allow them to publish posts or approve comments on your blog. They must have WordPress accounts, however. If you wish to have a class blog, Blogger may be a better option since most people are more likely to already have Google accounts over WordPress accounts.

Many of the typical blogging platform characteristics apply: easy to create blogs and blog posts with multiple customizable templates, tags for organizing your posts, can follow other blogs, and can connect to and embed social media or easily share blog posts. You can also make your blog entirely private, and/or choose whether you want search engines to be able to index your blog or website. WordPress has iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone apps.

 WordPress Features

WordPress Support

Video tutorial: How to create a free blog on WordPress

Coursera

Coursera.org is a website where one can take free online classes. It partners with “top universities and organizations to offer courses online” (per their website) on many different topics, subjects and specializations. Many classes offer certificate tracks, where one can pay a fee to earn a certificate in some specialization. The online classes are open to an unlimited number of learners from all over the world, so they are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). There are Coursera apps for Apple as well as Android, so one can keep learning on the go.

Coursera home page, browser

 

Coursera certification page, iPad app  

 



In order to enroll in a class, one must first create a free Coursera account, either the traditional email+password way or by linking one’s Facebook account to the site. Choose a class by browsing the course catalog, or use the search bar to look for a class on a specific topic.

 

Coursera catalog, browser

 



In order to enroll in a class, one must first create a free Coursera account, either the traditional email+password way or by linking one’s Facebook account to the site. Choose a class by browsing the course catalog, or use the search bar to look for a class on a specific topic.



Coursera catalog, iPad app

 

One can also go to the Institutions list to view the partnering universities and organizations around the world and what classes they offer.

 

Coursera institutions page, browser

 

We will focus on the browser-based Coursera for now. Once signed in, the Coursera dashboard displays the user’s class and account information. A tiny triangle next to the user icon, when clicked, will drop down a menu (as shown in the screengrab below, on the right). The Enrollments page shows the courses one is enrolled in. To see archived, future, or watchlisted classes, simply click on the desired heading above the currently displayed course.

The Accomplishments page shows one’s grades and earned certificates.

 

Coursera dashboard, Enrollments page

 

Coursera account menu

 

Coursera dashboard, Accomplishments page

 

 

From the dashboard, click on the green Start or Resume button below the class image in order to enter the class.

Each class is hosted on Learning Management Software that is similar to Blackboard or Moodle. One can navigate the course pages through the side menu. 

 



 

 

The Course Content section is divided by weeks. Each week includes video lectures, class handouts, quizzes, and any other course content chosen by the instructors. Once it is viewed, each item’s icon will turn into a green check mark.

 



 

 

 

The Discussions section is an online forum where students can discuss the class, course content, video lectures, and class or miscellaneous topics. The forum is divided up into different threads, with specific forums dedicated to course content. All discussion threads are moderated, and depending on class size and their availability, instructors will sometimes answer questions in the discussion forum.

 

 

 

The Coursera app looks different than the browser, of course, but all of the same content is there.  The navigation menu is at the bottom of the tablet screen.

 

Coursera dashboard, iPad app

Coursera class outline, iPad app

 

 

Happy learning!

Docphin

Docphin is similar to Read by QxMD, which we explored early in this series.

Docphin is an app designed to help medical and health sciences practitioners keep up to date on current literature. The free app is available for Android and Apple devices. Docphin can also be used on the web from any laptop or desktop computer - https://www.docphin.com/.

After downloading the app, or navigating to the web site, create your own free, personal Docphin account. In addition to the standard fields like name, email address, and password, you will also have the chance to enter a “Training Level”, a primary specialty or interest, and choose the institution with which you are affiliated. The University of St. Augustine is on the list of institutions. I recommend choosing it to connect to our library’s full text access of the articles you will encounter within the app/site.

Once you are registered, you can select specific journals in which you are particularly interested. You can set up keyword-based alerts, so that you will receive a notification when a new article matches your topic of interest. Note that a basic alert will only search for the keyword in the title of articles. An advanced alert that searches in the title and abstract for your keyword requires paying for an upgrade to a premium account.

Here’s what the list of journals, with options to add or edit your personalized list of journals, looks like in the app on an Android phone:

When you see an article you want to read, you can save it for later by pressing (or clicking) a star icon next to it. If the article is available for free, or is available through the USA library, you will be able to download the PDF instantly. Otherwise, email us at library@usa.edu and we can get the article for you through our interlibrary loan service.

EBSCOhost

The EBSCOhost app allows you to access a selection of our databases (CINAHL, ERIC, Mental Measurements Yearbook, and eBooks) from your mobile device. If you're ever traveling or away from your computer, but really need to run a quick literature search, this app has you covered.

To set it up:

1.       Download the app – iOS or Android.

2.       Log into our CINAHL database with your USA credentials.

3.       Click on the “iPhone and Android apps” link at the bottom of the CINAHL homepage.

4.       Enter your email address and hit send.

5.       Open the email on your mobile device and click the link for the authentication key.

An unfortunate downside of this app is that it does not work on the university’s Wi-Fi. To authenticate it and use it, you must disconnect from USA Wi-Fi or set it up when you’re off campus. This is why it’s only recommended as a way to access these database when you’re away from campus.

Once you’ve followed all of the set up instructions, you’re ready to start searching!





When you open the app, you can immediately run a search by typing keywords into the search bar.
























Search results are sorted by relevance, but you can also choose to sort them by date.

If you see the Adobe icon in the bottom right corner, it means you can access a full text PDF of the article immediately through the app.


















To narrow your search, select refine from the top left of the search results. From the refine screen, you can choose to filter your search by subject, journal, language, subject, age and gender, and geographic area.







For even more search options, tap Settings (the gear icon) at the bottom of the screen.

From here, you can filter your search by database, full text availability, publication date, etc.


















Selecting a result will open up the article's details.

Selecting the Adobe icon will open up a full text PDF that you can read on your device.

There's also an option to save the PDF, but this feature doesn't always work well. Instead, I recommend selecting the mail icon to email yourself the PDF and save it from there. The email feature is also great for easily sharing full text articles with colleagues.








While the app does search our EBSCO eBook collection, it does not let you access the full text.

However,  you can choose to email yourself the information and link to an eBook so that you can access the full text once you're next at your computer.











 

You can access more set-up instructions for this app and the EBSCO help desk here: http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=5718

The screenshots in this email were taken from an iPhone. 

FlipBoard

FlipBoard lets you create your own personalized “magazine” of stories gathered from around the Web and specific to your interests. You can use FlipBoard online or through an app on your tablet or mobile device.

When you first register for a FlipBoard account, you have the opportunity to browse and search through thousands of topics, including occupational therapy, physiotherapy, health, exercise, sports medicine, rehabilitation, women’s health, and more. There are also fun topics like sports, art, music, celebrities, and shopping. FlipBoard uses those topic choices to personalize your Cover Stories – news articles collected around the web on your topics from sources like PubMed, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Huffington Post, Forbes, CNN Money, and many more.

Looking at a particular article, you can click a heart symbol to indicate you want to see more like it; you can click an envelope icon to share the story via email or social media; and you can click a plus sign to add the article to a “magazine” or folder based on whatever criteria you’d like. For example, Read Later, PT, or Education. You can invite others on FlipBoard to collaborate on a particular magazine, share the magazine via email or social media, or even get code to embed the magazine into a website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The more you interact with FlipBoard, the more accurately it can personalize your Cover Stories.

You can also explore the magazines other FlipBoard users have created. Some are very timely – such as a Super Tuesday magazine – and give you an idea of what everyone is talking about online.

FlipBoard gets its name from the fun way you can flip between stories in the mobile app version. All of the same features are available on the app as are available on the web version of FlipBoard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swiping up makes the page flip to the next story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FlipBoard is a great tool to help you keep up with all the new information posted online each day. By following only topics that interest you, FlipBoard streamlines what you see, meaning you spend less time sorting through articles that do not interest you.

FlipBoard is useful in the classroom (online or f2f) too. Gather together stories from around the web into a customized magazine that you want your students to read and then easily share it with them. Or, groups of students working together could collaborate on a magazine  to share information for a group project.

I encourage you to give FlipBoard a try. I’m sure you can find even more great applications for this tech tool.

PubMed for Handhelds

PubMed for Handhelds is a mobile app version of the PubMed database. More than simply a smaller-screened version of the regular PubMed website (like the PubMed Mobile app), PubMed for Handhelds gives options for quick searches on the go or in the clinic.

 For example, PubMed for Handhelds includes a template for a quick PICO search:

Enter your terms based on the clinical scenario and search PubMed’s index of articles instantly.

You can also opt to do a clinical query search:

The records for specific articles include a TBL (the bottom line) section that summarizes the main findings of the study. You can also click from there to read the entire abstract, connect to full text, or see a list of related articles.

 

 

A major weakness of PubMed for Handhelds is that it does not allow linking with libraries for full text access. Even if you have a MyNCBI account that is linked to the USA library, by default the “Full Text” link in PubMed for Handhelds will take you directly to the publisher’s website. So accessing the full text free through the USA library requires extra steps outside of this app.

PubMed for Handhelds is available as a free Android or iOS app. To download the app, either search your device’s app store, or go to the PubMed for Handhelds website: http://pubmedhh.nlm.nih.gov/

More information:

PubMed for Handhelds

Review: Bring PubMed to the Bedside: Using Your Mobile Device to do Quick Searches

READ by QxMD

Read by QxMD is a great way to stay up to date with the current literature in your health sciences or medical field. It is a free app, so you will need to have a smartphone or tablet to make use of it.







When you first download the app and create your account, you can designate your profession and specialty. Both physiotherapist and occupational therapist are available under the list of professions. Read will show you current articles based on your profession and specialty.

I know I'm not really a physiotherapist. This is just for demonstration purposes!

















Additionally, you can choose to follow certain journals and keywords. The more information you feed into Read about your professional interests, the more tailored your "Featured Papers" will be. After your initial set up, you can change your specialties, journals, and keywords by touching the Edit button toward the top of the default screen.

















On the Featured Papers screen (which is the default screen when you enter the app), you can scroll through articles that match your profession, specialty, journals, and keywords. You'll immediately see the title, conclusions section of the abstract, and a brief citation. For more information, touch any part of the article title or abstract.














If an article is available freely online to the public (open access), the PDF will automatically download to your mobile device. If you don't want that to happen, click on the gar icon at the top of the screen when you are on the "Featured Papers" page, select "Settings & Information", and disable Automatic PDF Download.

Note: There is a way to designate affiliation with a particular institution so that articles that are available in a library but are not open access will download automatically, too, but QxMD charges institutions a yearly fee to enable this feature. If Read becomes a highly used tool among our students and faculty, we can consider paying the yearly fee to enable the easy connection. Until then, you can copy the article title and paste it into a Search USA search. The EBSCOhost mobile app (more info to come in a future Tech Tools email) can facilitate this process right on your mobile device.












A great aspect of Read is that it can work as a "push" tool by notifying you on your mobile device when there are new articles of interest. That way you don't necessarily need to remember to go in and check your list of Featured Papers all the time. Depending on your preferences, you can change the notification settings by clicking on the gear icon at the top of the screen when you are on the "Featured Papers" page, select "Settings & Information", and then "Push & Email Notifications".

There are some decent video tutorials out there for using Read by QxMD. The screenshots in this email were taken on an Android device, so iOS users may find a Read by QxMD iPhone video or the Read by QxMD iPAD Walkthrough video useful. Note that you might notice some differences between what you’re seeing in these videos and what is on your own screen based on newer versions of the app and the operating system you’re using.