Time to Review and Restock your first aid kit @ home, work, vehicles?

May is the busy month of celebrations from School Nurse appreciation Week and Day, Teacher appreciation week/day, Mother's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and way to many events to list in a blog post. Check out Brownie Locks and The 3 Bears site for daily, monthly, and unique events.

But take some time to ensure to restock your first aid kit. Whether you are the school nurse, an adventurist, or keep a pocket kit available, clean the kit out and restock the kits at home, work, and in your vehicles. The most used items need restocking, creams and liquids expire or evaporate, individual towelettes dry out, batteries need to be replaced, plastic and rubber materials dry rot depending on the environment the where the kit is stored, and special instructions and contact numbers need to be updated.

It may also be time to review or renew your CPR or AED training and certifications or sign up or host a local basic first aid course. While you are at it, check the fire extinguishers. You can have the tools but if you do not know how to use what is in the kit, the effort is useless.

If you never need a first aid kit...good for you! But for that paper cut, bug bite, unexpected splinter, or unplanned event...you never know when you will need something. Better to be prepared than never ready.

How do you schedule the review of your basic first aid kits? Monthly, Quarterly events on a shared calendar, make it a family event, involve the coworkers? 

Comments, +1s, and reaction check boxes are always welcome.

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Paper Rater

I came across Paper Rater after one of Richard Byrne's posts on plagiarism tools from August 2010. He recently ran an updated post on eight resources for detecting and preventing plagiarism in June 2012 and Paper Rater is still on his list.

From Paper Rater's About page:

PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing. PaperRater.com combines the power of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, information retrieval (IR), computational linguistics, data mining, and advanced pattern matching (APM). We offer the most powerful writing tool available on the internet today.

Since I am taking a short course and creating Lab Reports in APAv6 I thought I would give Paper Rater a try. Enter the title of your paper, copy and paste the text of your paper in the text box, copy and paste your references, bibliography, and works cited in the Reference box. Then select the education level of this paper's author, the type of paper you are submitting, originality detection (optional), and read and agree to the terms of service.

Depending on the amount of text inserted, report type selected, and your network connection the results will display. You have the option to print a summary of your results or step through the recommendations.

Paper Rater will check your submission for plagiarism, spelling, grammar, style, vocabulary and give you an opportunity to like them on Facebook. I would put them in a circle if they were on Google+. Depending on the type of paper you submit there is an option to view a grade. Selecting Lab Reports does not produce a grade but I can select Research Paper and the Grade option is available.

The additional components that I like about Paper Rater are:
Bad Phrase Score which is based on the number and quality of trite or inappropriate words, phrases, and cliches found in your paper.

The Style section includes the transitional words score, sentence length, and word usage.
Transitional Words Score based on quality of transitional phrases used within your paper.

The Sentence Length section provides a summary that includes sentence info includes character count, number of words, average length, characters=syllables, number of sentences, average length, percent and number of short sentences, percent and number of long sentences, number of paragraphs, average sentence length, number of questions, and percent and number of passive sentences, and the number of the words in the longest and shortest sentence.

The Word Usage section provides a summary of verb types which include: to be and auxiliary then calculates the percentage of conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions, and nominalizations and sentence beginnings which include the number of pronouns, interrogative pronouns, articles, subordinating conjunctions, conjunctions, and prepositions.

The Vocabulary Score section provides a vocabulary score, vocabulary word count, percentage of vocabulary words, and a list of vocabulary words used. They recommend their vocabulary builder to improve just one word a day in your vocabulary to encourage you to improve your vocabulary score to 60, which will make your paper stand out.

So if you have a paper that you want analyzed, give Paper Rater a try. The site provides a different perspective of your writing. 

Paper Rater has a user suggestion improvement site, a blog and a Facebook page. I would like to add Paper Rater to a Google+ circle if they were there.

What is your favorite part of Paper Rater? Are you using it with thesis/dissertation assignments, blog posts, biography, correspondence, book reports, movie or book reviews? Comments, recommendations, reaction box checks, and +1s are always welcome.

Consolidating References

I am consolidating references from previous assignments created during my last few classes. NCU will switch from APA version 5 to APA version 6 in January 2010, so the references are listed in a text format. Web sites, books, and articles are consolidated and this blog post will be used as I progress through the disseration phase. Any of the research/scholarly articles were found in many of the databases through NCU's library and referenced in the Research Strategies blog post and making connections through Twitter.

This list is not all inclusive, simply a blog post with many references which may or may not be used in future assignments. Any of the books listed are also linked in my Google Books library if they are available in Google Books. Please feel free to comment and provide recommendations or improvements as you read through the post.

How cool would this be if I could have everything I have ever read in my ePortfolio? Another great reason that students should be creating one...if for nothing else a collection of references for reflection.

Adams, D. (2008). Gaga for Google in the twenty-first century advanced placement language classroom. Clearing House, 82(2), 96-100. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Badke, W. (2009). Google scholar and the researcher. Online (Weston, Conn). 33(3), 47-9.

Barrett, H. (2009). Google apps ePortfolios. Retrieved from: http://sites.google.com/site/eportfolioapps/.

Blachman, N. (2009). Google guide. Retrieved from: http://www.googleguide.com/.

Bodzin, A. M., & Cirucci, L. (2009). A land-use-planning simulation using Google earth. Science Scope. 32(7), 30-38.

Braender, L., Kapp, C., & Yeras, J. (2009). Using web technology to teach students about their digital world. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 145-153. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1755224741).

Braender, L., Kapp, C., & Yeras, J. (2009). Students meet and create knowledge (SMACK). Retrieved from: http://ismack.org/

Branzburg, J. (2006). Use Google maps mashups in K-12 education. Technology & Learning. 26(10), 32.

Brown, J. S. & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 16–32. Retrieved from: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf

Buske, C., Dingman, J., McNally, D., Phil, J., & Wallace, B. (2009). Google tutor. – Tutorials, tips, and advice for Google users. Retrieved from: http://www.googletutor.com/.

Chillarege, K., Nordstrom, C. Williams, K. (2003). Learning from Our Mistakes: Error Management Training for Mature Learners. Journal of Business and Psychology. Vol 17, Iss 3.

Couros, A. (2006). Examining the open movement: Possibilities and implications for education. Campus-Wide Information Systems. Retrieved from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3363/Dissertation-Couros-FINAL-06-WebVersion

Duffy, P. (2008). Engaging the YouTube Google-eyed generation: Strategies for using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 6(2), 119-129. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Fisch, K. & McLeod, S. (2009). Shift Happens. Retrieved from: http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/

Goodstein, A. (2007). Totally wired what teens and tweens are really doing online. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

Google Apps. (2009). Go Google. Retrieved from: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/gogoogle.html

Google Books. (2009). Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/

Google For Educators. (2009). Google web search - classroom lessons and resources. Retrieved from: http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html.

Google Scholar. (2009). About Google scholar. Retrieved from: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html.

Google Teacher Academy. (2009). Resources - tools. Retrieved from: http://sites.google.com/site/gtaresources/tools.

Hargis, J., & Wilcox, S. (2008). Ubiquitous, free, and efficient online collaboration tools for teaching and learning. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE), 9(4), 9-17. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Harzing, A. (2008). Google scholar - a new data source for citation analysis. Retrieved from: http://www.harzing.com/pop_gs.htm.

Holland, J., & Anderson, S. (2008). Google earth and GPS activities for U.S. history & geography, grades 5-8. Eugene, OR: Visions Technology.

Kousha, K. & Thelwall, M. (2007). Google Scholar citations and Google web/URL citations: A multi-discipline exploratory analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(7), 1055. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

Petra, T. (2009). Using Google earth in the math curriculum. Retrieved from: http://realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/RealWorldMath.org.html.

Pletka, B. (2007). Educating the net generation: How to engage students in the 21st century. Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Press.

Rienzo, T., & Han, B. (2009). Microsoft or Google web 2.0 tools for course management. Journal of Information Systems Education. 20(2), 123-127.

Stephens, K., Houser, M., & Cowan, R. (2009). R U Able to meat me: The impact of students' overly casual email messages to instructors. Communication Education, 58(3), 303. Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals.

Vogel, C. (2009). A call for collaboration. District Administration, 45(5), 22-25. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Weinberger, D. (2007). Everything is miscellaneous: The power of the new digital disorder. New York: Times Books.

Windham, C. (2005). Father Google & Mother IM: Confessions of a net gen learner. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(5), 42-58. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

Yenerall, J. D. (2003). Educating An Aging Society: The University of the Third Age in Finland. Educational Gerontology. 29(8).

As always, comments are appreciated.